How to Play Clash of Clans on a Chromebook (Complete Tutorial) – 2018

So, you want to learn how to download and play Clash of Clans on a Chromebook.

Well, you’ll be glad to know that it’s either very easy if you have the right gear, or very difficult if not.

Why?

It’s because if your Chromebook is compatible with Clash of Clans, installing and playing the game will be super easy. You could literally have it set up and going and you’ll be commanding your troops in no time.

On the other hand, if your Chromebook can’t run the game, you’ll have to do a lot more work in order to get the game running.

It’s entirely possible to get the game running on a Chromebook. It just depends on what kind of Chromebook you have.

This guide will identify if you own a compatible laptop.

If you do, I’ve written up a complete tutorial on how to download the game.

If you don’t, I’ve written some alternative methods on how you can attempt to get the game on your Chromebook.

So, let’s get started already.

Last updated: 1/1/18. This guide will be constantly updated for accuracy.

Can your Chromebook run Clash of Clans?

Find out if your Chromebook meets the minimum requirements to play Clash of Clans.

Newer models are good-to-go

So if you just bought one, you’ll probably be able to play it without a hitch. Awesome.

But if you have an older one (like my laptop), then you’ll need to verify that you’re scheduled for the update (if even at that).

Upgrading your hardware

Personally, this kind of bugs me because my Chromebook is pretty dated now.

It’s an Acer CB3-131, and it’s scheduled for the update. But it’s been about a year now since it’s been rolling out and I’ve gotten impatient.

If you have an old Chromebook, it may be a good time to upgrade to a newer one. They’ve come a long way and improved a lot in terms of hardware, features, and performance. And the best part about them is that even for a top-of-the-line Chromebook, it won’t cost you a whole lot.

Click on the search box. Search for the game in the search box and hit Enter.

You’ll see the app pop up in a list. Click on it and read the description and get excited about it. Because that’s what you’ll be doing soon.

Step 3: Download and install the game

Click on the big “Install” button to begin installing the game onto your Chromebook. It should only take a few seconds to install. After it’s done, the “Install” button will change to “Installed” and it’ll be ready to go.

Step 4: Play the game

You’ve just installed Clash of Clans on your Chromebook.

Congrats. Just launch the game and it’ll boot up. And then you’re in. Woot.

Here’s a video demonstrating how to download the game from the Play Store onto your Chromebook:

If the game doesn’t boot, crashes, freezes, or doesn’t load, check out the Troubleshooting section later in this tutorial.

What if you don’t have access to the Google Play Store?

This is where things start to get nasty.

To save you time, I’ll tell it to you straight.

Unless you’re familiar with Chromebook “hacking” tools like the Arc Welder and ARChon for Chrome, you should probably just sit back and wait for your Chromebook to get the Play store update. It’ll save you a lot of headaches.

But if you’re a devoted, hardcore Clan Fan and you’re willing to attempt anything to get CoC on your Chromebook, there’s one method you can try that’s not too involved and pretty easy.

If you didn’t read the previous sections, the easiest way to get Clash of Clans on a Chromebook is via the Google Play Store. This isn’t the only way, but it’s the most straightforward way that’s actually proven to work from user reports online.

Get the Play Store on your Chromebook

Go ahead and force the Play Store update on your Chromebook in order to install Clash of Clans.

So, the main goal is to get the Play Store update.

Since your Chromebook doesn’t have the update yet, we’re going to try to force it to update and install the Play Store.

Note: If your Chromebook isn’t on the schedule to ever receive the update, this probably won’t work for you. This should only be attempted if your Chromebook is scheduled to receive the update sometime in the future.

Okay, so now that you have a working update of Google Play, you can now attempt to download CoC. Go ahead and jump to the previous section titled “I have access to the Google Play Store” and follow the instructions there.

If it still doesn’t work, check out the troubleshooting section below.

Use ARC Welder

Using the ARC Welder to run CoC on Chrome OS is a popular option. It just takes a little bit of work.

ARC Welder stands for “App Runtime for Chrome.”

It’s a tool that lets you run and launch Android apps on Chrome OS, so it’s only fitting for an attempt to install the game.

And if you have any questions on how to use it, you can post them on the dedicated ARChon subreddit.

Just like ARC Welder, I suggest you to read over the documentation so you know how to use it. There are tons of guides and videos online you can also check out.

What you’ll do is basically download the game from the Play Store on your smartphone. From there, you’ll use the Chrome APK Packager. You’ll use this app to package the game into a landscape or tablet version into a Chrome extension that you created.

Then, you’ll send it over to your Chromebook and load it up as an extension. And finally, you should be able to enable the extension on the Chrome Browser. This will let you run Clash of Clans on Chrome on your Chromebook. That’s a lot of C’s.

You can refer to this video for detailed instructions on using ARChon Runtime to install CoC:

Remote access your Windows PC

You can set up a Clash of Clans emulator to run the game and then remote access it from your Chromebook.

The concept is simple.

You run an Android emulator on your Windows computer.

The emulator runs the game.

You remote access your Windows computer on your Chromebook.

You play the game through this series of connections.

So, you’re playing CoC on your Chromebook through a remote connection to your Windows computer which is emulating a copy Android which is running a copy of CoC.

Easy enough, right?

This is an involved and complicated process, but it works.

You’ll need the following items to emulate Clash of Clans:

A Windows desktop or laptop

A Chromebook

A fast Internet connection

Bluestacks to emulate the game on your Windows computer.

Chrome Remote Desktop to set up the remote connection between your Chromebook and Windows

Step 1: Download Bluestacks

Bluestacks is one of the most popular Android emulators. You’ll need to download and install this on your Windows device to emulate the game.

You should see your windows desktop mirrored on your Chromebook by the remote connection. This remote access lets you use your Windows computer on your Chromebook without wires and anywhere on the planet as long as you have an active Internet connection.

So technically, you could play CoC out in public by remotely connecting to your computer at home. Think of all the possibilities.

Isn’t that awesome?

Downsides to emulating the game

The only pitfalls to using this technique are that it depends on your Internet connection speed and your hardware.

If you experience lag or low framerates (FPS), you could have a choppy WiFi connection or your Chromebook may be too weak to handle the game.

If you have lag or slow response times, try using different networks.

If you have low frame rates, this is either due to your Chromebook not having enough processing power or RAM. Or your Windows computer isn’t powerful enough either. Or both. This is only a problem you can solve by buying a new device.

That’s the last alternative technique to get the game installed and going. It’s probably the most complicated way, but it works if you set everything up properly.

If you messed up on any step, it’s easy to fix your laptop. It’ll basically repair itself if you do a Powerwash.

See the “Powerwashing” section below if you break your laptop at any point. Don’t be afraid to play around and experiment.

If you have any other suggestions that worked, leave them in the comments and I’ll check them out. Help out some other Clan Fans.

Did you screw up? No sweat. Just Powerwash it.

If you screwed something up, just Powerwash your device to start over.

If you screwed something up, it’s easy to restore your Chromebook back to default settings.

Note: Doing a Powerwash will delete all your local data. This includes all your images, videos, and other files saved in your Downloads folder and any custom folders on your hard drive. You can back up all your data using an external hard drive or other media. Stuff you have saved online in your Google Account will be saved.

Troubleshooting

If you’re having problems getting Clash of Clans running on your Chromebook, check out these common issues and solutions.

A lot of these problems will only resolve with time. A lot of this software is still in beta, so it’ll improve over time. The biggest issue is waiting when you just need your Clash fix.

The game doesn’t run properly on my Acer Chromebook

There have been reports that CoC may not load properly on Acer Chromebooks.

This is pretty saddening because the majority of Acer Chromebooks all have the Play Store update preinstalled or are capable of receiving the update in the future. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any solutions to this bug.

But you should know that getting CoC on a Chromebook is something that’s still very new. In fact, just the fact that Android games can be played on a Chromebook is still surprising. The whole integration between the Play Store and Chrome OS is still largely in beta testing, so that’s why not everything may work smoothly.

The only thing to do is wait for the platforms to integrate better with each other, and for Supercell (the developer behind CoC) to update the game so it’s compatible with more Chromebooks.

I have access to the Google Play Store but the game still doesn’t work

This is likely a compatibility issue.

The game was built for phones, not laptops, so forcing the game to run on a laptop on different hardware and software kind of screws it up. It also changes the aspect ratio of the game some menu icons may not be rendering properly.

If you’re comfortable experimenting with tools to get CoC running properly, you can check out ARChon and Arc Welder. They allow you to change the layout of the game from portrait and landscape, which is necessary in order to run the game properly.

You need to set them to the proper settings in order to emulate the phone version of the game on a Chromebook correctly. See the section titled “Use Arc Welder” above in this guide.

If you break your Chromebook, you can easily reset it back to default settings. See the “Powerwashing” section to learn how.

I forced the Google Play Store update on my Chromebook and downloaded the game, but it doesn’t run properly

This is probably due to the fact that the update was forced prematurely on a Chromebook model that isn’t yet supported.

The fact that the platform itself is in beta, playing Android games on a Chromebook is in beta, and the entire forced update is in beta, you’re likely to run into issues.

If this happens, you can try messing around with Arc Welder if you’re a hardcore fan and need some of that Clash fix. See the appropriate section above.

Besides, if you screw something up on your Chromebook, it’s very easy to restore it back to factory conditions. See the “Powerwashing” section for instructions.

The touchscreen controls don’t work and/or the aspect ratio is off

If you’re having issues with your touchscreen and you’re using ARC Welder or ARChon, you probably don’t have the aspect ratio set up properly.

Do some research on this and set it up properly. You want the game to run in “tablet” mode so it works on your laptop. If you have a convertible Chromebook, that’s even better.

You can easily switch it over to tablet mode and it should fit perfectly with the game’s aspect ratio without a hiccup.

The keyboard and trackpad/mouse controls don’t work

Clash of Clans was built for touchscreen input only.

Suddenly converting it over to a laptop with a trackpad and keyboard is a huge jump. There’s not much you can do about this other than to mess around with it and maybe find a working solution.

(If you do, post it in the comment section- please.)

A touchscreen Chromebook would be better. But a convertible Chromebook would be ideal. A convertible would allow you to fold it into a tablet, which better fits the game’s native settings than how a laptop would.

These are all bugs resulting from forcing the game onto a laptop. Remember, CoC was built for smartphones. We’re now trying to run the game on a laptop without even porting it over correctly. It’s like trying to get a get a CD to play on a Bluray player.

The only thing to do is wait and let the kinks work themselves out. By that, I mean wait for the developers over at Supercell and Google patch and fix up their platform.

With the game being such a huge success, it’s pretty much guaranteed that this game will eventually be fully compatible with Chromebooks and Chrome OS. Just sit tight.

When it does finally roll out to enough laptops and is stable, I’ll post an update here on this guide. Feel free to subscribe for email updates.

Did you get it working already?

Did you get CoC working on your Chromebook properly? Ready to build up an epic fort?

And, that’s about it.

The easiest method to get Clash of Clans running on a Chromebook is through the Google Play Store. That’s the solid way to play the game.

If you have access to it, you should be able to play the game without any trouble installing or downloading it (though it’ll probably be buggy- that’s kind of to be expected when you’re doing something like this).

For the rest of us, we’ll have to wait for the update (or force it). Or if you don’t have a Chromebook that’s planned to receive the update, you’ll have to buy a newer one depending on how much you want to play the game.

Since the game is such a big hit, I expect Supercell to eventually have the game fully compatible with Chromebooks.

It’s only a matter of time before the Play Store finally gets stable enough to play it properly.

If you have any questions or if you find an easier working method (for those of us who can’t get CoC to work), leave a comment and I’ll check it out =].

If this guide has helped you, consider telling a fellow Chromie and perhaps playing Clash of Clans together…on your Chromebooks. Oh yeah.

About Andy Z.

Andy is a casual-hardcore Chrome OS fan and contributes to the site regularly. He likes computers, tech, sports cars, videogames, and of course, Chromebooks. Thinker. Introvert. Geek. You can find him on Twitter (@platytech), or send him an email (platy@platypusplatypus.com).